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ever in his moment of bravery? But the phantom Death still stood at
Fafhrd's side, inhibiting all action.
Besides, Fafhrd felt there was a spell on the clearing, making all
action inside it futile. As if a giant spider, white-furred, had already
spun a web around it, shutting it off from the rest of the universe,
making it a volume inscribed, "This space belongs to the White Spider
of Death." No matter that this giant spider spun not silk, but crystals --
the result was the same.
Hringorl aimed a great axe swipe at Vellix. The Venturer evaded it
and thrust his sword into Hringorl's forearm. With a howl of rage,
Hringorl shifted his axe to his left hand, lunged forward and struck
again.
Taken by surprise, Vellix barely dodged back out of the way of the
hissing curve of steel, bright in the moonlight. Yet he was nimbly on
guard again, while Hringorl advanced more warily, axe-head high and
a little ahead of him, ready to make short chops.
Vlana stood up in the sleigh, steel flashing in her hand. She made
as if to hurl it, then paused uncertainly.
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Hrey rose from his bush, an arrow nocked to his bow.
Fafhrd could have killed him, by hurling his sword spearwise if in
no other way. But the sense of Death beside him was still paralyzingly
strong, and the sense of being in the White Ice Spider's great womblike
trap. Besides, what did he really feel toward Vellix, or even Nalgron?
The bowstring twanged. Vellix paused in his fencing, transfixed.
The arrow had struck him in the back, to one side of his spine, and
protruded from his chest, just below the breastbone.
With a chop of the axe, Hringorl knocked the sword from the dying
man's grip as he started to fall. He gave another of his great, harsh
laughs. He turned toward the sleigh.
Vlana screamed.
Before he quite realized it, Fafhrd had silently drawn his sword
from its well-oiled sheath and, using it as a stick, pushed off down the
white slope. His skis sang very faintly, though very high-pitched,
against the snow crust.
Death no longer stood at his side. Death had stepped inside him. It
was Death's feet that were lashed to the skis. It was Death who felt the
White Spider's trap to be home.
Hrey turned, just in convenient time for Fafhrd's blade to open the
side of his neck in a deep, slicing thrust that slit gullet as well as
jugular. His sword came away almost before the gushing blood, black
in the moonlight, had wet it, and certainly before Hrey had lifted his
great hands in a futile effort to stop the great choking flow. It all
happened very easily. His skis had thrust, Fafhrd told himself, not he.
His skis, that had their own life, Death's life, and were carrying him on
a most doomful journey.
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r r
Harrax, too, as if a very puppet of the gods, finished unlacing his
skis and rose and turned just in time for Fafhrd's thrust, made upward
from a crouch, to take him high in the guts, just as his arrow had taken
Vellix, but in reverse direction.
The sword grated against Harrax' spine, but came out easily.
Fafhrd sped downhill with hardly a check. Harrax stared wide-eyed
after him. The great brute's mouth was wide open, too, but no sound
came from it. Likely the thrust had sliced a lung and his heart as well,
or else some of the great vessels springing from it.
And now Fafhrd's sword was pointed straight at the back of
Hringorl, who was preparing to mount into the sleigh, and the skis were
speeding the bloody blade faster and faster.
Vlana stared at Fafhrd over Hringorl's shoulder, as if she were
looking at the approach of Death himself, and she screamed.
Hringorl swung around and instantly raised his axe to strike
Fafhrd's sword aside. His wide face had the alert, yet sleepy look of
one who has stared at Death many times and is never surprised by the
sudden appearance of the Killer of All.
Fafhrd braked and turned so that, his rush slowing, he went past
the back end of the sleigh. His sword strained all the while toward
Hringorl without quite reaching him. It evaded the chop Hringorl made
at it.
Then Fafhrd saw, just ahead, the sprawled body of Vellix. He
made a right-angle turn, braking instantly, even thrusting his sword into
the snow so that it struck sparks from the rock below, to keep from
tumbling over the corpse.
He wrenched his body around then, as far as he could when his
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r r
feet were still lashed to the skis, just in time to see Hringorl rushing
down on him, out of the snow thrown up by the skis, and aiming his
axe in a great blow at Fafhrd's neck.
Fafhrd parried the blow with his sword. Held at right angle to the
sweep of the axe, the blade would have been shattered, but Fafhrd
held his sword at just the proper angle for the axe to be deflected with
a screech of steel and go whistling over his head.
Hringorl louted past him, unable to stop his rush.
Fafhrd again wrenched around his body, cursing the skis that now
nailed his feet to the earth. His thrust was too late to reach Hringorl.
The thicker man turned and came rushing back, aiming another
axe-swipe. This time the only way Fafhrd could dodge it was by falling
flat on the ground.
He glimpsed two streakings of moonlit steel. Then he used his
sword to thrust himself to his feet, ready for another blow at Hringorl, or
another dodge, if there was time.
The big man had dropped his axe and was clawing at his own
face.
Lunging by making a clumsy sidewise step with his ski -- no place
this for style! -- Fafhrd ran him through the heart.
Hringorl dropped his hands as his body pitched over backward.
From his right eye socket protruded the silver pommel and black grip of
a dagger. Fafhrd wrenched out his sword. Hringorl hit with a great soft [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]